


To Cope

by aestheticAshes



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Attempted Murder, Dark Magic, Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Character Death, Murder, Original Character Death(s), Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Warnings May Change, murder buddies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 17:02:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17729234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aestheticAshes/pseuds/aestheticAshes
Summary: The destruction of Zorc was said to have purged all evil from the world. It was said that he was the epicenter of darkness, and that with him gone there would be no more.Well, Ryou hated to say it, but Horakhty could not have been more wrong if she hadtried.There would always be evil in the world, first of all―evil was in human nature. Evil was justthereand everyone had the potential for it. Just because some never succumbed to it didn’t mean it wasn’t possible that they could. Saying that evil was gone because the bastard who’dstartedit was gone was like saying that there weren’t Nazis anymore because Hitler was dead.There weredefinitelystill Nazis.He’d seen what was happening in America.Point was, things didn’t necessarily change for the better just because he’d learned how to let go of the past. In fact, things may have changed for the worse.





	To Cope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Names are written Surname-First name instead of First name-Surname. Ex.) Bakura Ryou as opposed to Ryou Bakura.
> 
> Most characters are referred to by their last names instead of their first names. Exceptions to this rule are characters we already commonly know by their first name, like Yugi and Marik, and any other prominently featured characters, like Ryou.

Plainly stated, few things were more familiar to Bakura Ryou than death, and that was a simple fact of his life by the time he was 18.

The Spirit’s influence wrought a chaos in his life that left him struggling even years after he was free of the Ring―it had surrounded him with pain and death for nearly a decade, killing some friends and simply leaving others to rot away without their souls. These sorts of things were not forgotten easily. Not gotten over easily.

The first couple of years after defeating Zorc were... Rough, to say the least.

It was hard to adjust to the lack of dark magic tickling at the back of his mind, tempting him, urging him to give in and let the darkness out. It was hard to adjust to the way he no longer had to worry he would lose control of himself and become something so much worse. It was hard to adjust to being alone in his apartment with no one to accompany him.

For a while, he missed the Spirit.

For a while, he missed the blackouts.

For a while, he mourned the loss of what had become his “normal” after discovering the Spirit.

It took time and effort to pull himself out of that state of mind.

It also took help, and he thanked whatever higher powers there were every single day that Yugi and Marik had been around when he was at his lowest―Yugi for simple moral support, and Marik to convince him that he didn’t need to cling to the past, because things  _could_  change.

Marik may have also given him a nice hard metaphorical kick in the ass about not letting the past dictate his future on several occasions, and a very literal ass-kicking on a couple others. Both helped.

Both helped far more than they probably should have.

They helped and though it took  _time,_  by the time his 20th birthday rolled around and he was midway through a Bachelor’s degree in Independent Studies that just skimmed the edge of being an archaeology or history degree, he had taken his life into his own hands. The first step had been cleaning house, both metaphorically and literally, and mentally and physically. He’d started with the physical house-cleaning―throwing out figures and dioramas and clothes too closely associated to the Spirit... And he’d moved on from there. Some time after high school graduation he’d been able to move to a new flat where healing was easier.

That said, things did not necessarily change for the better for him, or for either of the others.

The destruction of Zorc was said to have purged all evil from the world. It was said that he was the epicenter of darkness, and that with him gone there would be no more.

Well, Ryou hated to say it, but Horakhty could not have been more wrong if she had  _tried._

There would always be evil in the world, first of all―evil was in human nature. Evil was just  _there_  and everyone had the potential for it. Just because some never succumbed to it didn’t mean it wasn’t possible that they could. Saying that evil was gone because the bastard who’d  _started_  it was gone was like saying that there weren’t Nazis anymore because Hitler was dead.

There were  _definitely_  still Nazis.

He’d seen what was happening in America.

Point was, things didn’t necessarily change for the better just because he’d learned how to let go of the past. In fact, things may have changed for the worse in that he had learned, also, that in order to ensure his continued survival in a world that  _definitely still had evil in it, thanks so much for the lie Horakhty, we really appreciate it,_  he needed to be colder as a person. He’d begun to warm up to people and all it had gotten him was the distinct sensation of being used as a doormat, so he learned how to balance it. He considered himself to be an... Okay sort of person, he supposed, but he was not  _good_  by any stretch of the word. He was courteous and pleasant most times and quite the opposite whenever circumstances happened to make it necessary. He could be a pretty mean guy, honestly, if he didn’t put some effort into being nice.

In addition to that, he...

Well.

He had some  _urges_  left over by the half of the Spirit that had been Zorc that he’d never quite been able to shake. For the first couple years he’d ignored them the best he could, pushed them into a box at the very back of his mind and sat on it to keep it closed in a sense somewhat more literal than anyone who hadn’t spent so much time trapped in their own head would understand.

But then he’d fucked up during his first semester of college. He’d thought it safe to move off the box and try to focus on things he deemed more important than any of the urges trapped inside.

He’d paid the price for that, as had one of his new classmates.

The urge had hit him as they walked to his classmate’s flat to study. They’d found they lived in the same complex while chatting during the single class they happened to share, and both had bemoaned the lack of any sort of security aside from lockable doors. And then they’d decided, hey, they could study together for the test tomorrow.

They’d picked his classmate’s flat almost by default because Ryou mentioned something about needing to clean up and the classmate shrugged it off and offered their flat instead.

The urge had hit him as they walked.

It was a sudden, feral sort of urge, leaping from the box and to the forefront of his mind with no warning. But it was there, tugging, whispering,  _clawing,_  wishing desperately to be fulfilled.

 _Slit his throat,_  the urge said.  _Gorge yourself on his blood._

 _No,_  he’d replied, initially,  _that’s fucked up._

But they’d reached the other’s flat and stepped inside and the urge just grew stronger.

 _He has such pretty eyes. Such a pretty smile. Such a pretty **soul.**  Why not preserve that innocence?_ The urge purred,  _Strike him down before the cruelty of the world can._

 _No,_  he’d replied, shakily.  _I’m not killing anyone._

The idea of the male’s death did not cause Ryou any significant distress, nor did the idea of being the one to cause it. His shakiness merely came from a certain level of unwillingness, a restraint he knew wouldn’t hold up. Zorc’s urges had always been stronger than he was, and now that he’d dropped his guard long enough to let one of them come forth, it would take far too much effort to shove it back into the box. Such a distraction would be obvious to his classmate.

He pushed at the urge nonetheless, shoved it backward, away from the forefront of his mind, and for the time being it stayed there.

When he eventually gave in, half an hour later, it was not with any ceremony or actual  _giving in._

By all accounts, his giving in was entirely accidental, to begin with.

He’d gotten to his feet, intent on following his classmate to the kitchen so they could pause for a drink and a quick snack. He’d glanced out the window, saw how late it was growing, and spared a thought towards how glad he was that his flat was just across the way and he wouldn’t have to walk far in the Domino night, where the urges would most easily overwhelm him. He knew he had much less control of himself when he was uneasy. That was a simple fact of life.

When he turned back, he’d accidentally bumped into his new classmate’s back, like the klutz he was. He should have stopped walking when he looked out the window, but instead he’d continued. Hadn’t realized he was still approaching a man who was standing still. Walking too fast, on top of that.

The impact had knocked his classmate forward, momentarily introducing his pretty face to the edge of a cabinet door. There was a sort of  _crunch_  noise that Ryou recognized as his nose breaking or at least bending in a way it shouldn’t have.

He’d cursed, apologies already spilling from his mouth as he explained he hadn’t been watching where he was going.

The classmate shrugged him off, waving his hand in dismissal as he moved a hand up to clutch his nose, stepping back from the counter. He’d said something about having had worse in the past, how he used to roughhouse with his brothers all the time and a broken nose wasn’t anything serious.

Ryou had been tempted to leave the room to avoid the inevitable sight of blood, knowing it tended to make him a little queasy.

He hadn’t moved fast enough.

He’d seen the blood slipping down his chin, seen it trickling through his fingers, and the urge leapt back to the forefront of his mind.

 _Kill him._  It hissed,  _Kill him now._

It was not the urging that made him give in any more than it was an actual desire to comply. It was more a matter of  _fear._  What if he  _wasn’t_  fine and he was going to come at Ryou as soon as the pain wasn’t so overwhelming? What if he was angry? What if, what if, what if,  _what if―_

Grabbing him by his (soft, soft) hair was very nearly a completely knee-jerk reaction, as was using that hold to drag him the two or three steps it took to get to the other side of the kitchen and slam his face into the edge of the counter.

His classmate gave a startled yelp that very nearly became a question, but with one loud  _thud_  his voice cut off. He slumped to the ground, hair slipping from Ryou’s grip as he realized what he’d just done. He’d knocked him out, at the very least, and all out of a misguided fear he  _knew_  was wrong.

He hadn’t known Koki for very long at all, but in the time he  _had_ known the young mister Oyakawa, he’d seen that he was an incredibly sweet young man. Sure, he seemed the type to fight for fun, but he  _hadn’t_  seemed the type to get angry enough to fight for real over something as simple as Ryou accidentally running into him and breaking his nose. Not after he’d been so quick to befriend him and allow him first-name privileges.

He’d cursed again, standing over him. “Well, what am I supposed to do with you  _now?”_  He asked, though entirely aware that Koki could not hear him.

Waiting for him to wake up and apologizing was an option. He could say he’d panicked, that he’d been reminded of some unpleasant things from his past and his first instinct had been to fight rather than run from them. Koki would believe it, he was sure.

 _Or,_  the traitorous little urge purred,  _you could just kill him._

Though there probably should have been more thought put into how he should proceed, he simply shrugged and given an answer that more or less amounted to, “Sure, why not.”

Oyakawa Koki was only his first victim, though he spent the weeks following his death and the next surfacing of the urges hoping he would also be the last.

His next victim ended up being a man nearly twice his age named Kaga Katsumoto, and Ryou thought it fair to say that Mr. Kaga had deserved every bit of pain he’d given him.

Ryou didn’t think very highly of rapists, after all.

He hadn’t managed to pin Ryou down as he’d wanted to, thankfully, so Ryou was spared any further mental struggle and attempts at healing, and he’d admitted to some very,  _very_  juicy things before he died in the hopes of Ryou letting him live.

Ryou left a typed copy of his confessions on his chest that he  _totally_  hadn’t used the old pervert’s personal computer and printer to create.

But, well, that was Kaga’s fault for thinking he’d be able to rape a college student at his own home and not suffer any repercussions.

Ryou regretted Koki’s death immensely, simply because he regretted giving in to old urges left by a bastard parasite. He also regretted stealing away the life of someone so sweet, he’d admit, because Koki hadn’t even begun to deserve his fate.

He did not regret Kaga’s death in any capacity whatsoever. In fact he was kind of proud of himself for getting rid of a slimy fuck like that.

After Kaga came a girl he’d gone to high school with, Amachi Norie. Amachi had always been, in essence, just a step  _above_  completely deplorable, as far as Ryou was concerned. She was your usual preppy type, pretty much a stereotypical high school girl all around. This included being unnecessarily mean-spirited and rude to her classmates, though she of course spared the necessary respect for adults and upperclassmen.

He’d never liked her, and she hadn’t liked him either.

Though their interactions were few and far-between, she was undoubtedly one of his least favorite people and one of many he had to consciously coerce the Spirit not to mess with. She was from a far more wealthy family than he was, and if anything happened to her and he could even be remotely connected to it, the consequences would not be pretty. They’d never come out from the police’s suspicions.

The circumstances leading up to Amachi’s death at his hands were... Different than the last two. Theirs had been a matter of him being too nice again. Koki, he’d been too nice and let his guard down, allowing for a slipup that led to a murder that he still felt a little guilty for, though not as guilty as he probably should have. Kaga, he’d been too nice and had almost been taken advantage of, leading to a very intentional murder that he still didn’t feel guilty at all for.

With Amachi, he really didn’t do anything differently in his usual daily routine―the other two were cases of him deviating from his normal, even in just a small way, and ending up in a bad situation for it.

He got up. It was a Tuesday. He had class at 10, so he woke up at 8 and took a shower. He brushed his teeth, brushed his hair, put on a  _little_  bit of eyeliner to make his eyes  _pop,_  and then got dressed. He checked his wallet, made sure his keys were in his jacket, and laced up his boots. Checked his locks three times before he left the building and headed down the street to the nearest cafe, where he ordered a French Vanilla cappucino and two chocolate eclairs.

That was his morning routine every Tuesday. He showed up to the cafe no later than 8:50 to order his drink and his sweets every single Tuesday for the past two years. And, in fact, he went there every day of the so-called work week before 10 AM without fail for the past two years, and pretty much every afternoon for a year before that.

Never before had he seen Amachi there, even before they graduated.

But that morning, he did.

That morning, he very nearly ran into her as he walked in the doors.

She recognized him, of course―who wouldn’t? He was, to his knowledge, the only milk pale 20 year old with barely any body fat to speak of and naturally white hair in all of Domino City, and particularly the only one she’d gone to school with.

To his unending shock, she  _greeted_  him, and his first thought was that maybe she wasn’t the same person she’d been in high school. Maybe she’d changed.

He’d greeted her in return, because that was the  _polite_  thing to do, and he moved past her to order. Ended up talking to her for a while as he waited for it to be ready. Found out she was not at all a different person than she’d been in high school―she was only being nice to him because he had somehow moved off her shit list. Done something that moved him into the list of people she treated with respect.

He guessed getting into a better college was probably that something. Or graduating with better grades than her.

After he got his order, he checked his watch. Only 9:05. He invited Amachi to keep talking for a while.

She agreed.

It was very intentional, this time, when he found a secluded spot while they were walking and managed to push her in without causing too much of a fuss. Anyone who saw probably thought she’d tripped.

She only had time to ask, “What-” before he hit her with the hardest right hook he could and  _laughed_.

“I always wanted to do that in high school,” He informed her as he grabbed her by the throat and pinned her to the back wall of a building. He thanked the gods that he was wearing gloves.

He’d have to make this quick and clean―he only had a little under an hour to work with her and he couldn’t chance getting dirty before class.

So he crushed her windpipe and only stayed there long enough to watch the light drain from her eyes and hear her gasping for breath under the din of the crowded streets just outside the new crime scene.

It was very intentional. No urges necessary.

He killed her because he’d always kind of wanted to and now he’d grown desensitized enough to violence that he could―not to mention that the Spirit had left him plenty of good experience concerning not getting himself caught.

And then he exited the little alley and made his way to class like it had never even happened, finally sipping at his cappuccino (which was finally drinkable) and munching on his eclairs.

His lack of queasiness would have scared him if he wasn’t so used to being unbothered by death.

It was several months later that the urges finally decided to rear their ugly heads again, apparently satisfied by the amount of bloodshed he’d managed in four months.

They came back while talking to Yugi.

Fear clawed at his throat the moment the first urge whispered for him to hurt Yugi. His stomach twisted. Ears rang. Breath caught in his throat.

 _No!_  He yelped back at the urge,  _I’m not going to hurt him!_

 _That’s what you said about Koki._  The urge replied smugly.  _What makes Yugi any different?_

Well, for one, the idea of Yugi’s death caused Ryou a truly significant amount of distress. For two, the idea of him being the  _cause_  of Yugi’s death caused him even more significant distress. For three, he’d known Yugi for going on half a decade, now, and was therefore significantly more attached to him than he could ever have been to someone he’d known for a grand total of three months.

“Ryou?” Yugi had asked, “Are you alright?”

Panicked, Ryou remained frozen, determined not to hurt him. Not to make the same mistake he’d made with Koki.

Kaga and Amachi he could justify. Yugi and Koki... Not so much.

“Ryou?” Yugi asked again.

He reached out.

Touched Ryou’s shoulder.

His fingers were so gentle.

So careful.

He just wanted to check on him.

Just wanted to make sure he was ok.

He was a good guy.

He was a good friend.

Yugi didn’t deserve to get hurt.

Ryou swallowed, staring at him and trying to gather himself as he kept a vicegrip on his urge to move. If he could gather himself enough he could shove the urges back into the box they belonged inside of long enough to find someone he  _wanted_  to kill.

Yugi’s hand landed more solidly on his shoulder, the other coming to rest on his opposite shoulder. The touch was just toeing the line between firm and delicate, just right to ground him under any other circumstances.

This time it slam-dunked him into fight or flight.

The next thing he knew he was over top of Yugi with his hands around his throat. The slightly shorter male was clutching his wrists, staring up at him with wide eyes. He looked like he might be just on this side of crying. His cheeks were turning red. Ryou knew that to get into this position he had knocked Yugi’s hands off of him and more or less tackled him to the ground. He remembered doing it. But it was more a blur.

He could not derive any satisfaction from the sight laid out before him. He didn’t want to hurt Yugi. He didn’t want to kill Yugi. He didn’t want Yugi to be scared of him.

He pried his hands off of Yugi’s throat and scrambled off of him.

They both ended up crying.

Yugi’s throat was bruised by the next day.

Ryou thought for sure he’d at least tell someone what happened. Maybe go to the hospital to have his throat looked at.

But he didn’t.

Ryou found himself breaking down and spilling the beans about his previous three victims.

He thought Yugi would do something. Say something.

But he didn’t.

He just listened, handed Ryou a cup of tea, and calmly informed him that sometimes it was just...  _Like that._

It was not the response he’d been expecting.

In fact, it was so far from the response he’d been expecting that Ryou would admit to standing there staring like an idiot for several minutes. Yugi didn’t seem perturbed by it.

Only days later Ryou ended up killing someone else. He didn’t know their name. He didn’t care. He just knew that it got the urges to shut up for a while and for the time being that and venting his frustrations were the only two things he cared about.

He got angry after class one day and killed someone else in the cold and bitter back streets of a sleazy part of town. He left them in a pile of red snow behind a restaurant.

Yugi knew about it moments after it happened both times.

He never reacted negatively.

In fact, after a while, he asked if Ryou could show him sometime how he usually did the deed. Ryou agreed without thinking too hard about it because, you know what? He wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If Yugi was going to be chill with his emerging habit of killing people off as a weird, unhealthy coping mechanism, Ryou wasn’t going to question it.

Marik, of course, was a different story.

He didn’t find out until a couple of months after Ryou’s 21st birthday.

He was  _not_  thrilled, as one might expect, but not for the reasons any rational person would be less than happy to find out someone they cared for was essentially a serial killer.

Marik was simply miffed that he couldn’t escape violence no matter where he turned, and that quickly turned into him  _also_  wanting to see how Ryou went about killing people.

Their morbid curiosity led to a string of murders lasting about a month wherein he did very little aside from experiment with different ways of killing people, taking as much time as he may have wanted. And his two little supporters watched dutifully at each site, observing how he went about it.

It wasn’t until Yugi popped some bastard outside the Game Shop a real good one right in the mouth that Ryou thought  _maybe_  exposing him to that level of violence wasn’t the greatest idea he’d had to date. It also made him think that he was  _real_  proud of Yugi for decking the bastard, and  _real_  proud that he didn’t immediately back down or apologize when the man threatened to return the favor.

He just told the guy that if he  _did_  return the favor, he knew several people who wouldn’t be happy about it, and also that he really shouldn’t be escalating the situation any further―Yugi had only punched him as a result of the shit he was spewing, after all. A punch in exchange for nearly 15 minutes of slander seemed fair to him.

Ryou still wasn’t sure which made the guy back off, but he didn’t care.

He and Yugi caught the guy later that day and Yugi proved to him quite definitively that he  _really_  should not have exposed him to his more violence coping mechanisms, because  _damn_  Yugi was an unnecessarily malevolent murderer.

He was proud of the smaller man nonetheless, of course.

They got rid of the body together and Yugi seemed only mildly shaky in the wake of his first-ever murder.

Marik proved he was still just as despicable as ever just a month later when someone went out of their way to corner Yugi and attack him.

That particular poor bastard survived longer than any other victim... If only because Marik was feeling vindictive and wanted them to suffer as long as possible. He even let Ryou finish the job.

 

* * *

 

Now 22, Ryou was no stranger to getting his hands dirty and cleaning up after himself. It was part of his life. Almost part of his routine.

He shook his head and finished rinsing the blood from his hands, glancing at himself in the mirror as he did so. There was still blood smeared on his pale cheeks and even some in his eyelashes. He laughed a little at that. He’d gotten especially messy today... But, then, he’d been especially keyed up today. It was the night before graduation, and he was midway through his preparations for an ancient ritual he’d been itching to do since he’d discovered it over a year ago. He was stressed.

What’s-Her-Face had been a good outlet. Very quiet. Very shiny, dumb, and easy to trick. Very pretty, too, and it was almost a shame he had no interest in women. She could have been his type―kind, sweet, quiet, cute...

Clicking his tongue in amusement, he ducked his head to rinse his face off, scrubbing at his cheeks and eyes.

He looked at himself in the mirror once more after drying his face.

He smiled.

Tomorrow would be a good day, provided he finished his research tonight.

Maybe he’d be able to now he’d blown off some steam and could focus past the soul-deep festering rage he constantly felt.

And maybe, he thought as he left the basement bathroom and gave the mess on the tarp near the center of the basement itself as wide a berth as he could, he could find a use for what little remained of What’s-Her-Face. Maybe something for the ritual?

Mm. He didn’t know yet.

He’d just have to find out.

Humming cheerily, he all but skipped his way up the stairs as he pulled his bandana from off his head and let his long white hair cascade down over his shoulders and around his face.

Yeah.

Tomorrow was going to be a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much like Ryou, I gave into my urges on accident and ending up murdering several people in the end, several of whom died solely for the sake of me being able to vent.
> 
> I think that's beautiful.
> 
> (Let me make it clear that when I say I murdered several people _I mean the fictional ones who bit it in this fic not real people ok????_ )


End file.
